Alphabet Inc. a subsidiary Google has decided to shut down its G+ services from April’19 as a result of a data breach which exposed info of more than 52.5 million of its customers. The firm claims that none of the leaked info which includes name, email, gender, and age was used by hackers or apps
Sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders report that Google learned about the bug in October this year through the regular routine of testing and fixing. The web search giant has admitted that this happens to be a second massive bug exposure in its social media service history and has begun notifying all those who were impacted by the bug.
“Now our focus will be in developing a new version tailored for businesses”, said David Thacker, Vice President, G-Suite Product Management.
Application Programming Interface Programs (APIs) for developers who access Google + data for R&D will be shut down by Feb’19.
Earlier, Google announced that it will shut down its service in Aug’19. But now, with the discovery of the new bug, the company has decided to expedite the shut down by April next year.
Note 1- The discovery of the bug and info leak happened just a day before when Chief Executive Sundar Pichai was set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee of the US Congress on his company’s data collection practices.
Note 2- Launched in the year 2011, Google + happens to be a competitor to Facebook’s social media platform. In the year 2015, the company claimed that it has over 111 million active users.
Note 3- According to a report published by Wall Street Journal, the data expose happened in spring 2018, but was not made public due to fears of increased regulatory scrutiny.
